The term originated in the Byzantine Empire, where, in the 9th to 11th centuries, the stratarchai were a class of senior officials in charge of military finances and administration, including the hetaireiarches (commander of the mercenary guards), the droungarios of the Imperial Fleet, the logothetes ton agelon who supervised the army's horse-breeding farms, the komēs tou staulou (Count of the Stable) and the protospatharios of the basilikoi anthropoi. By the late 11th century, this technical meaning was forgotten, and the term stratarches, along with variants such as megas stratarches and panstratarches, came to be used as an honorific epithet for important generals. In this use it is for instance used to describe the famed literary hero Digenis Akritas, or famous past commanders, such as